


If not her...

by Shadowdianne



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-10 23:29:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7865668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowdianne/pseuds/Shadowdianne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And she thinks, in the middle of the night, with a light above her and her pendant on her hand.</p><p>A little drabble featuring Regina waiting for Emma</p>
            </blockquote>





	If not her...

Storybrooke sleeps as the moon hungs high on the sky. There is barely any clouds and in the forest a playful, almost warm, breeze runs through the leaves. Regina, standing on the porch of her house, hands crossed over her chest and black blazer covering the dress she stil needs to take off stands against her own door, a shadow ghostling over her eyelids. Henry has fallen asleep long ago, the book open over his knees and his right hand in a sling, product of a war he shouldn’t be living, that no one of them should be fighting in.

At the porch a soft light scintillates. The light of the ones that keep waiting. On Regina’s hands a pendant bites on her skin, the warm metal seeming to burn as she waits, as she looks at the road, as she yearns and stares

And as she does she remembers a stolen kiss, shuddery and under the same moonlight just a few hours before, when the sky seemed to be loosing its color at the other side of the horizon. And she rememberes muttered words and hands caressing as quickly as possible, hands that curse the time, the damned time, that almost never seems to play on her favour. She thinks about Emma, smiling due to the kiss and with tears on her eyes, whispering an “at last” and  an “I’m sorry” on the very same “I love you” and how she promised to come back from the portal, the portal that would lead her to the Land of the untold stories, alive and well. And it’s stupid, screams Regina inwardly, pendant on her hand and magic swirling on her pupils. Is stupid because she should be the one traveling at the other side. Instead, it was imperative for her to remain at Storybrooke, be the last line of defense.

And it’s stupid but she remembers, remembers and thinks on Emma, turning back, her hands still holding hers, something small and hard against her palm. And she remembers her scream, full of anger and wrath and Henry, far too tall, far too old, hugging her close as the vortex closed behind Emma, behind green eyes that looked towards her in that last second. Promising something that they can’t do. She remembers, sad and angry, she remembers a moment far too alike in the town line, in the same border, hands over hers and a promise falling from her lips, traitorously and sad, broken and jagged with Pan’s curse at their backs and the sudden feeling of loss on those same green eyes.

And she remembers and thinks, thinks on how everything could have been different if she should have been braver and would have kissed Emma before. And not with the whispers of death caressing the nape of her neck and the words full of hate ringing on her ears, words of someone that as much as she hates and loathes is still part of her. A sensation of lost time and reproach swirling around her, like drops of sand.

And she remembers Neverland and Camelot, the feeling of a dagger and the impotence of cold eyes under the guise of emmeralds. 

And she asks herself, not for the first time, if she has lost everything, if she has lost her.

The pendant seems to weigh more every second it passes, with ever beat of her heart, with every spark of magic she feels thrumming inside of her. She has never been a patient woman, always of action. She hates the silence, the possibility of loosing. She didn’t win reigns as she sat back, she never did. And why, why she had needed to stay, why she had needed to watch her go.The light over her head seeming to twinkle, the smell of ozone and sea merging around her as she murmurs, as she waits, as she thinks and remembers her answer, her own “I love you” whispered to an already closed portal. She wonders if Emma knows, if she knew.

The light of moon starts to dwindle, little by little, hour by hour and no one comes closer to the mayor or the light at the porch. Nothing, not a shadow, not a whisper. And Regina’s eyes start to fall, slowly, softly, battling against yet another enemy Regina can’t defeat.

And is Emma the name her lips wake up to as she opens her eyes. A sound, strong and sudden, filling her porch, a timid smile occupying her line of vision, pale skin covered and cacked in blood and wounds, clothes tattered and teeth bitting into lips she knows far too well.

And this time, when she whispers “Emma” she is there. Wounded, tired, with a hand falling limply at her side and with the first hours of morning twinkling on her sword and hands, still full of magic. But she is there.        

“Hi”

And she hugs her, because, if not now, when? If not with her, with who? And when she whispers “I love you” Emma laughs and laughs and cries and everything for now can wait.               

 

 


End file.
